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Barbara Jordan

Barbara Charlene Jordan, (1936-1996), was born in Houston Texas. She graduated from Texas Southern University in 1956, and from Boston University Law School in 1959. Jordan was elected to the Texas State Senate in 1966, becoming the state’s first black Senator since 1883. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and spent six successful years there (1973-1978). In 1974 Jordan was part of the team that investigated President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal. In 1982, she stepped away from national politics to become a professor at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin.